Dynamic property name for serialization

Question

I need to have a dynamic property-name for the serialization.

public class Home
{
    public virtual int Id { get; set; } // value: 2

    public virtual string propertyName { get; set; } // value: administration

    public virtual string Text { get; set; } // value: text1
} 

should serialize to:

{
  "Id": 2,
  "administration": "text1"
}

Is there any way to serialize that? Which is the best way to deserialize it?

Answer 1

Add a ToJObject method that returns a JObject.

public JObject ToJObject()
{
    JObject jObject = new JObject()
    {
        { "Id", Id },
        { propertyName, Text }
    }

    return jObject;
}

Then for Deserializing i would probably create a factory method something like this:

public static Home CreateFromJObject(JObject obj)
{
    Home h = new Home();

    foreach (var a in obj)
    {
        if (a.Key == "ID")
        {
            h.Id = a.Value.Value<int>();
        }
        else
        {
            h.propertyName = a.Key;
            h.Text = a.Value.Value<string>();
        }
    }

    return h;
}

Ofcause if you have multiple other values in there i would either change it to a switch or make sure that only the needed JObject is passed in there.